Projects

My research is centered around the sixteenth century and is mostly related to the exact sciences: mathematics, astronomy, etc. I have a special fondness for textual work. I know it is a bit old-fashioned, but I still believe that the close reading of ancient scientific texts is the true mark of scholarship in the history of science. I have engaged in other studies as well, broader and more theoretical. For example, I am interested in book history, in the study of material culture, and in the more theoretical aspects of the historiography of science.

Here's a brief list of my main Projects, with links to pages with more detailed information:

1. Pedro Nunes Complete Works (Obras de Pedro Nunes)

The publication of Pedro Nunes' Complete Works (Obras de Pedro Nunes) has been my most absorbing task in the past years.

This Project is reaching its final stages and its main objective -- the publication of all printed works of Pedro Nunes in a modern,

annotated edition -- has been achieved.

The following volumes are already published:

Vol. I: Tratado da Sphera & Astronomici introductorii de spaera epitome (2002), 320 pp.

Vol. II. De crepusculis (2003), 431 pp.

Vol. III. De erratis Orontii Finaei (2005), 409 pp.

Vol. IV. De arte atque ratione nauigandi (2008), 805 pp.

Vol. V. In theoricas planetarum Georgii Purbachii annotationes (2011), 465 pp.

Vol. VI. Libro de algebra en arithmetica y Geometria (2010), 576 pp.

For more information about this project, click here.

2. Francisco de Melo's mathematical works

I am working with Bernardo Mota on the edition of Francisco de Melo's mathematical works. We had been working with the copy at

the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa (Cod. 2262), but the recent find in Germany, at the Stralsund Municipal Archive, of the original

manuscript gave an added impulse to our work. The original manuscript is a remarkable item, truly the present for a King. It was

located by dr. Jürgen Geiss of the Staatsbibliothek Berlin. We set up an Internet site devoted to this project: Francisco de Melo and the Euclidean Tradition in Portugal.

For more information about this project, click here.

3. Old Libraries and Scientific books in Portugal

I have long been interested in Libraries and Books on scientific matters. I maintain a collaboration with the National Library in Lisbon since 2001. Together with the staff at the Rare Book Division (Reservados), headed by Lígia de Azevedo Martins, we prepared the Catalogue of fifteenth and sixteenth century books on science (see the Books page) and we set up four exhibitions at the National Library on matters related to science (see the Exhibitions page). We have also been working on the Collection of old scientific manuscripts (see below).

In the past years Luana Giurgevich (a post-doc at our group) and I engaged in a very ambitious study of old libraries in Portugal with the objective of mapping in sufficient detail the most important ancient collections of scientific books in Portugal and the way those books were used.

4. Leonard Thurneysser manuscript of Portuguese plants and animals.

5. Manuel Dias' Tianwenlüe 天问略